That is an interesting set of experiments. To my eye, the pizzas made using the bromated All Trumps look more appealing.

It would be interesting to see if there are ways to get the unbromated All Trumps to perform like the bromated All Trumps, for the benefit of those who might want to avoid the potassium bromate. For example, I wonder what the results would be if you increased the hydration of the unbromated All Trumps dough, used more yeast and a longer fermentation. It also appears that you did not re-ball the dough balls, as you have done on prior occasions. This makes me wonder what would happen if you reballed the dough ball with the unbromated All Trumps.

That is an interesting set of experiments. To my eye, the pizzas made using the bromated All Trumps look more appealing.

It would be interesting to see if there are ways to get the unbromated All Trumps to perform like the bromated All Trumps, for the benefit of those who might want to avoid the potassium bromate. For example, I wonder what the results would be if you increased the hydration of the unbromated All Trumps dough, used more yeast and a longer fermentation. It also appears that you did not re-ball the dough balls, as you have done on prior occasions. This makes me wonder what would happen if you reballed the dough ball with the unbromated All Trumps.

Peter

Yes, they are interesting!! I'm thinking that because the bromated doughs are so strong compared to the others that scaling and balling the unbromated doughs closer to bake time will make up for this. I'll give it shake tomorrow and see what happens. I'm not reballing any of this batch because the doughs were bulk fermented.John

Todays doughs were baked at the 65 hour mark. They were scaled and balled 12 hours prior to baking and were taken out to warm up 2 hours prior to baking. I had a 580 degree oven to use today. As usual the bromated dough is much larger than the other, is much stronger, and has much more oven spring. The first 3 pics of pizza is the bromated one. Both pizzas were excellent to eat, the unbromated one has better texture, it is crisper.John

I've finally found some time to compare the bromated All Trumps with bleached and ascorbic acid added King Kaiser (which is the All Trumps flour). From the reading I've done, ascorbic acid is one of the conditioners used in flour to replace the bromates...so I was wondering how good a replacement it is.

In this round I made two identical batches of dough using the two flours...I used the same proportions of ingredients as the beginning of this thread, but this time I prefermented 25% of the flour (16 hour poolish). The doughs were mixed a total of 3 minutes, then scaled, balled and refrigerated.

These doughs were in the fridge 23 hours and were taken out 3 hours prior to baking. Both doughs rose nicely in the fridge, both doughs opened very easily, in fact, I probably should have let them warm up only 1 hour. The first 3 pics are the bromated dough, the second 3 are the ascorbic acid added dough. They both are equally tasty , nothing exceptional, and didn't brown as thoroughly as I enjoy.John

The second day of using these two doughs was amazing. Knowing that the previous doughs were rather loose, I chose to reball these. These doughs were in the fridge 45 hours, were reballed 12 hours prior to baking and were taken out to warm up 3 hours prior to baking. The doughs seem to be almost identical in texture, flavor, and appearance....they also were crisp, they browned beautifully (top and bottom) and were two of the better doughs I've ever eaten. My crew concurred, as they loved them. Again, the first 3 pics are the bromated dough.

Thanks for your continuing experimentations fazzarino more cracker trials with that outrageous rise crust for this dough?

I've got half a bag left of the King Kaiser that I will use on more cracker doughs...I'll make sure and post what I find. We used 3 bags of the King Kaiser at work, and thought the doughs were excellent...I happened to be away for a few days and wasn't able to document things the way I like...but my brother said they were excellent.

3rd day of dough comparisons. These doughs were in the fridge 69 hours, were reballed 12 hours prior to bake and were warmed up 3 hours prior to bake. Excellent, excellent pizzas..the both of them were almost identical. The first 3 pics are the bromated dough, and the second 3 the ascorbic acid doughJohn

I also baked off a cracker crust made from the bromated flour, it was rolled a couple weeks ago and frozen. I took it out of the freezer 5 days ago. It cooked up rather nicely...and although it is not perfect, the point is it is good for as old as it is. Any other old crust would cook up white, pimply and have the texture of a ragJohn

The experiments I have done with the All Trumps, the bromated All Trumps, and the King Kaiser flour have given me a clue, just a clue of what I believe is happening. These are almost anecdotal experiments in that they are so small, and involve so few of the differing variables available to the pizza maker. Having said that, given that most of the experiments were baked in ovens at around the 540 to 550 mark, and given the very limited ways I used to mix the doughs, and given that the results of the experiments I have done on my own laminated cracker crusts have a bearing in my thinking about the New york style pizzas, I think that:1) The bromated doughs and the ascorbic acid doughs are much stronger than the other doughs, and because of this, they seem to make a better pizza than the others as they age...(I'm talking about not manipulating the dough at all as it ages). As for my cracker crusts, the bromated doughs don't make a better crust..but they do make a crust the ages much, much better than other doughs. By using good dough management one can overcome the aging problem.2) Again given the very limited experimental parameters I used, I can see no verifiable difference in the doughs containing bromates and those containing ascorbic acid.3) Even though the aged bromated doughs are much better than the plain ones, one can even the playing field by reballing doughs, which I believe give a much better texture. Even the bromated doughs eventually are helped by reballing.

Such great experimenting, thanks John! The way you report/keep track of your findings, as always, is most impressive and beneficial....it is much appreciated. Please, what is your "usual" flour used there at the shop for the crackers?

Some time ago, when I was trying to clone the Papa John's dough, I saw from the ingredients list I was able to get for their dough that they used ascorbic acid. I suspected that PJ might have been using something along the lines of a high-gluten flour or maybe a bread flour so I used 45-55 ppm of ascorbic acid, which is the amount that GM typically uses when adding ascorbic acid to its high-gluten and bread flours. I don't recall how I converted 45-55 ppm to a volume measurement, but for my amount of dough it was between a "smidgen" and a "pinch" mini measuring spoon. I was hoping to learn something from that experiment, but I could not detect any difference from using the ascorbic acid.

As an aside, I see that GM apparently no longer uses ascorbic acid for its Harvest King flour. My recollection is that at one time they used it for both the retail and professional versions of that flour.

Peter. As you know I did some trials with adding ascorbic acid to doughs trying to get non bromated flours to perform like bromated flours. I was unsuccessful, but after reading this I would like to try a few more times. I wonder if I wasn't using enough during my first trials. Do you have a guess as to what percentage I should use to get close to 55 ppm in a dough formulation? I usually use the expanded pizza calculator on our forum, so I could easily plug a number into that.

By the way our friend in toronto seems to be doing very well. It is crazy how different the flours (and the cheeses) are up there. We have been trying a bunch of different ones, and many do come with ascorbic acid there.

Peter. As you know I did some trials with adding ascorbic acid to doughs trying to get non bromated flours to perform like bromated flours. I was unsuccessful, but after reading this I would like to try a few more times. I wonder if I wasn't using enough during my first trials. Do you have a guess as to what percentage I should use to get close to 55 ppm in a dough formulation? I usually use the expanded pizza calculator on our forum, so I could easily plug a number into that.

By the way our friend in toronto seems to be doing very well. It is crazy how different the flours (and the cheeses) are up there. We have been trying a bunch of different ones, and many do come with ascorbic acid there.

scott r,

The notes I wrote on the PJ document that I got from PJ says 45-55 ppm equals 0.0045%-0.0055%. Most likely, I used a conversion calculator like the one at http://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/PPM_to_Percent.htm. From what I can tell from a Google search, one teaspoon of ground ascorbic acid weighs 5.12 grams. That is the conversion factor I would use in the expanded dough calculating tool. I'm sure that at some point I boosted the above percent out of curiosity but, again, I did not detect any difference. Ascorbic acid prevents the gluten bonds from breaking down during kneading but from what I have read the mechanism for doing so is different than the way potassium bromate does it.

I can see the challenge of finding a flour in Canada that performs like a bromated flour, especially since bromated flours are outlawed in Canada.

Some time ago, when I was trying to clone the Papa John's dough, I saw from the ingredients list I was able to get for their dough that they used ascorbic acid. I suspected that PJ might have been using something along the lines of a high-gluten flour or maybe a bread flour so I used 45-55 ppm of ascorbic acid, which is the amount that GM typically uses when adding ascorbic acid to its high-gluten and bread flours. I don't recall how I converted 45-55 ppm to a volume measurement, but for my amount of dough it was between a "smidgen" and a "pinch" mini measuring spoon. I was hoping to learn something from that experiment, but I could not detect any difference from using the ascorbic acid.

As an aside, I see that GM apparently no longer uses ascorbic acid for its Harvest King flour. My recollection is that at one time they used it for both the retail and professional versions of that flour.

Peter

PeterWhen I asked my bakery flour supplier about the possibility of getting an All Trumps Bromated bag to try, she referred me to General Mills. It was there that I was told that the bromated ones go to the East Coast, but that I should try the King Kaiser blend, because it was the same flour as the All Trumps but has the ascorbic acid added. So, I went ahead and bought 5 bags to play around with. At the same time, I went online to find a way to have a bromated All Trumps shipped to me...as per recommendations from Scott, Pennmac was were I went. Here is their flour page...you can see they offer 50 pound All Trumps bromated, bleached product. http://www.pennmac.com/search?search=flourNow, having said that I can't honestly tell you the bag I got was bleached....at the time I was not as informed as I should have been about bleached flour since that is what I have used for years and never thought a second time about it. Since then, I've done more reading and see that even the bleaching process is controversial in some circles. If I would have known that at the time, I would have made sure and documented everything....but I know now.

As for your Papa John's experiments using ascorbic acid, let me just leave you one thought....I think that if you are expecting to see a noticeable difference in say a dough ball which sits 24 hours, you probably won't notice much. It's as the doughball ages that you most likely will see a difference in doughs (one with ascorbic acid, the other one without).....in this instance, I'm assuming that the doughball is left untouched from the time of original balling until bake time. Maybe Papa Johns is using ascorbic acid as insurance in case their doughs age a little longer than they want, or maybe that particular flour just happens to work for them and it happens to have ascorbic acid. And maybe what I experienced was just a one time thing....don't know!! I'd sure love to hear from others what they might have experienced. Thanks for your help Peter.

On the matter of the Papa John's clone dough, I used the ascorbic acid in a two-day version of that dough. That is not a version that PJs uses. Their normal fermentation period is around 5-8 days. I did not use the ascorbic acid for that version. Thanks for your opinion on this. I had not associated ascorbic acid with a long fermentation window.

John,I enjoy watching your experiments and it is no secret that you have continual positive results with extended fermentation time windows.What is your genuine opinion(as far as taste) between a same day, 24hr., and 48hr. dough, concerning the type you work with...thank you.

Such great experimenting, thanks John! The way you report/keep track of your findings, as always, is most impressive and beneficial....it is much appreciated. Please, what is your "usual" flour used there at the shop for the crackers?

Thanks Bob

Here's an interesting story from real life. When I started in the business we used nothing but Mondako flour. It was mandatory, at the time I was part of a franchise and we all used Mondako. After I got out of the franchise, I started experimenting, and ended up using an ADM high gluten flour for years and years. I can't remember exactly which ADM product it was because it was under the Food Services of America label. But I do know that it was bleached and had ascorbic acid. Well, last winter we went through a hell of a time with our flour, and we just couldn't get it to work...ADM was having a hard time bringing in the new crop of flour. After a couple discussions with Scott, we tried changing hydration rates, we tried adding diastatic malt...we tried it all. So, we switched to All Trumps, the unbleached stuff, and it has been amazing so far...we'll see what happens this winter. With the low hydration rate of our dough, we see changes in flour very quickly. The question I have about flour now that I have experimented a little bit more is this: does the bleaching process and the addition of conditioners make a flour more consistent....it sure didn't work for ADM last year...how about with General Mills??

I have been using all trumps, full strength, and harvest king for years. All trumps and full strength always seem to be the same (and are bromated/conditioned), where harvest king seems to change (not bromated/conditioned)

Here's an interesting story from real life. When I started in the business we used nothing but Mondako flour. It was mandatory, at the time I was part of a franchise and we all used Mondako. After I got out of the franchise, I started experimenting, and ended up using an ADM high gluten flour for years and years. I can't remember exactly which ADM product it was because it was under the Food Services of America label. But I do know that it was bleached and had ascorbic acid. Well, last winter we went through a hell of a time with our flour, and we just couldn't get it to work...ADM was having a hard time bringing in the new crop of flour. After a couple discussions with Scott, we tried changing hydration rates, we tried adding diastatic malt...we tried it all. So, we switched to All Trumps, the unbleached stuff, and it has been amazing so far...we'll see what happens this winter. With the low hydration rate of our dough, we see changes in flour very quickly. The question I have about flour now that I have experimented a little bit more is this: does the bleaching process and the addition of conditioners make a flour more consistent....it sure didn't work for ADM last year...how about with General Mills??

John

Thanks John,Oh yes ..I remember your tribulations last year at your shop. Adjustments daily were trying to give you the blues. I believe your final question posed above will be well worth your efforts....if able to confirm a solid result.Thanks again..keep at it(I know you will )